Late and waiting

Well I still haven't started my period. This is really frustrating because I've always been 28 days to the hour.  The time has changed with birth and the miscarriage but the past 2 times I'd been starting on Friday at 8:30 pm. It's now Saturday night and still no period or cramps. I just took a pregnancy test and it's negative. I'm slightly concerned because of how I've been feeling the past couple days.

I'm probably over reacting and thinking the worst but on and off since last Thursday (4 days post ovulation)  I've had a sharp pain in my lower right abdomen/pelvis. It's so low down the only thing I can think of is either my appendix or reproductive. I don't think it's not my colon since I had a colonoscopy less then 2 years ago when I found out I have celiac. The one sided pain along with my lower back pain and missed period could be ectopic. I've read that sometimes HCG levels are slow to rise. I've come to this possibility mainly because of the crappy luck we've been having so far it wouldn't surprise me.

Or most likely it's just stress! Either way I've set up an appointment with my GP for Tuesday. I don't know which is better to have my period or not since she'll most likely want to do a pelvic exam with my symptoms ( like I haven't had enough of those this past year!) It takes 3 months to get the pap results back so I'm looking forward to getting those results since I had cervical cancer at 17 (after treatment my pap's have so far been normal for the past 5 years)

I feel like such a complainer and worrier. Trying to relax as there is nothing I can do at the moment anyway.

Another month

I'll start off with saying I took a pregnancy test yesterday (Tuesday) and it was negative. It's a little early since I'm not due to start until Friday night but the wait was TORTURE! I know technically I could still be pregnant (I took an early response test) but I'm much more relaxed and excepting that it probably won't happen this month.  I told Dan last night that I hated who I'd become. Before we started trying I always said I'd never be one of those people who spent all the time thinking about getting pregnant and I wouldn't chart or anything like that. How naive was I! We weren't in a hurry to get pregnant with Hailey, it was more lets start and if it takes a while that's ok. Now that we've come so close and have held our child it's always on my mind. So taking the test has made it less stressful and now I will just look to next month.  I find it easier to see the negative test then to wait and find out from starting my period. I guess we will take this next week to decide if we are going to try in November or wait.

On a different note it was an eventful day at work! First I got a call from our head office offering me a position for the next month going around and tweaking how things are done to make it more effective. I'm really happy about this because it means I get a month break from patients and I'll be super busy so won't have much time to think about getting pregnant and what this next cycle means to us (hard to believe Hailey was conceived in 2 weeks a year ago. To go a little off topic I was thinking today how I might've lied to the doctor about my LMP so that the due date would be on Dan's birthday instead of the day before because I remember before we found out I'd said that the due date would be a day before and I was a little disappointed but I may have just done the math wrong.) So I'm really excited to do this. It'll mean a lot of travelling around (which I'll get mileage pay for) and full time hours which I'm not used to ( I work between 50-60 hours in a 2 week period.) Extra money just in time for christmas!

I also worked a split shift today. From 9-12 I was at one lab and then from 1-5 I was at another. At 3pm we got a call from my friend at the first lab saying a patient became unresponsive in the waiting room. I guess an elderly man was waiting for his wife who was our patient and just fell over. No warning, nothing. He'd stopped breathing and had no pulse.  I didn't ask her any questions about it but I'm assuming they did CPR until the ambulance arrived. It doesn't look good. He lost all muscle control so he threw up and(I'm trying to think of a tactful way to say this) lost what was in his bowels. This isn't a good sign so unfortunately I don't think he survived. His poor wife just had to watch, thankfully he came with her because at least he had a better chance of surviving then if he was at home. As sad what happened is, I was more worried about my friend who's 34 weeks pregnant and had already gone into early labour at 27 weeks. She seems to be ok, obviously shaken but her and the baby are ok. I only bring up what happened because it has me shaken. This is why I chose private lab over hospital. On my practicum I watched while doctor's worked on a cancer patient who didn't survive and I wanted to hopefully never see that again. Apparently although this isn't common it does happen (the lab I was working in the afternoon had 3 in a year and half.) It also made me think how well do I really know CPR? It's been 4 years since I've had my last training and although I have a pretty good idea, I'd be guessing where to press and how hard. In the end I guess doing CPR wrong is better then not doing it at all. Dan and I had talked while we were trying to decide with Hailey and I wouldn't have let someone who hadn't taken a child CPR course in the past year alone with her. You hope you never have to use it, but sadly you never know, especially with a heart baby.

Tomorrow is Remembrance Day. I'm going to take my grandmother up to grandpa's grave. The terrain isn't very good so she hasn't gone out there very much these past couple years.

Moving forward.....I think

I had my appointment with the psychologist today. It went really well and although this first session was just to get to know me and what's happened I left feeling better. He asked me if the hospital had suggested any books on loss and it reminded me that I was given a book called still to be born. I started reading it again tonight and it's helped.

The big moving forward step the title suggests is that I've changed the back round picture on my laptop. Here's the picture I had up

I think it made me sad every time I opened the laptop. When I put the picture up it was right after we got home from the hospital and I worried I'd forget her. I now know that's not possible and feel like I don't need that constant reminder. I've replaced it with a picture I took on a hike recently. We spend a lot of time outdoors and I love this picture :)

I've gotten over my fear of having pictures of us online so since I'm in a picture mood here's one of Dan and I during that hike. We managed to find a patch of snow and took the opportunity to have our first snow picture of the year! It's late and I'm on call tomorrow morning so I'll end here.

Trying again put on hold

I had a breakdown this afternoon. I worked a half shift today and afterwards I called to set up an appointment with the counselling service through my work. I'm seeing a psychologist tomorrow afternoon. I then went out and did grocery shopping and when I walked in the front door I just lost it. I don't know why but I just couldn't stop crying and couldn't catch my breath. My mum lives a few blocks away so I drove over and just cried. My poor mum. I can't imagine what it's like to see your child in so much emotional pain and there's nothing you can do to make it better.

It's gotta be because we started trying again. I don't know why I feel this way and where it came from but I don't want to feel like this anymore.  We can't keep trying right now. I can't handle the stress and anxiety. I'm also wondering if I should go on anti-depressants. I haven't talked to Daniel about my feelings yet but I just can't keep going on like this.

It's so confusing. All I want is to be pregnant but trying to get pregnant is stressing me out so much that I don't want to try to get pregnant. I want a baby SO badly, but I think part of it is I want Hailey. I want to be pregnant again but I want to be pregnant with Hailey. I just want my baby back. I now wish I'd had those precious few hours or days with her but then I feel selfish because of all she'd have to go through for that time together. I'm so lost and don't know how to get back or if I even can.

Hopefully the session tomorrow will help me feel better and help me understand these feelings. I'm assuming I haven't fully grieved yet. I put on a show about how I'm ok now but really I just do/say what I think are the right things so people think I'm doing well when really I'm slowly falling apart.

A little obsessed

I've come to a realization this past week. I'm pretty much obsessed with all things related to becoming pregnant. This month was supposed to be a "lets see what happens" month and although it started out that way within the first week of the cycle I'd already "planned" for days I'd be most fertile. I know this alone doesn't sound obsessive but it's all I think about. It's all I look up online. My whole days are spent counting down until I should get my period and dissecting every small thing my body does to try to find out if I'm pregnant. We've still got another 11 days to wait and it's driving me crazy! The worst part is I do have a few symptoms.  I know I ovulated Saturday and Sunday morning I woke up with period like cramps. I've been getting them on and off today as well. I had this when I was pregnant with Hailey and the doctor described it as the egg burrowing in. The problem is I don't know if it's just my imagination or not. Is my body reacting to what I want so much to be true? And if it is are we going to go through the whole miscarriage again because it's a false pregnancy and I wasn't really pregnant?

I've decided I'm going to see a counsellor tomorrow. My work provides 6 free sessions a year and I went to one in August just after the miscarriage and right before Hailey's due date. Although I didn't like the lady, I can ask for someone else. I obviously still have issues and I'm stressed with wanting so badly to be pregnant. It's frustrating because 2 months ago I felt at ease not being able to try after the miscarriage. I could relax and not focus on getting pregnant. It's never been this bad. I don't know if it's because we didn't expect or feel the "need" to get pregnant too quickly with Hailey so when I did I was shocked. And then the miscarriage pregnancy wasn't planned, so I've never had this HUGE desire to become pregnant right away.

I'm sure this all comes down to my feelings of not being in control and the unknown. I keep thinking about how I'd be ok if I could just know that we'd get pregnant in December and the baby would be healthy. I'd be so ok waiting until then, but without of the stress of will I pregnant this month. The reality is I know one day we will have a healthy pregnancy and baby, I just need patience.......

Another step forward

I worked at one of my favourite labs today. A friend of mine who works there is currently 33 weeks pregnant. I haven't seen her much lately with everything going on in her life so it's always great to get to work together. We had an hour that was quiet and started chatting. I told her how Dan promised me if the next pregnancy doesn't work out I'm allowed to get a dog (Dan isn't really an animal person.) While we were chatting she took my hand and placed it on her belly where the baby was kicking. She then looked at me and said "I promise you will feel this again but it'll be your baby kicking you." After a little cry I then got up the courage to ask her what I've been thinking about for a while. I asked if I could come over sometime after she's the baby to hold him. I don't want the first newborn I hold after Hailey to be our second child and since she's having a boy it makes it a little easier. She said absolutely and since it's a c section she'll need the help.  I'm so thankful with how understanding and supportive she's been.

I ended up getting the mercury free flu shot today. I sat down with the nurse and told her how I know it probably doesn't have any effect but I got it last year just after we'd conceived and she had a heart defect. She said that it's really unlikely for anything like that to be affected by the mercury but she completely understood my need to feel like I've changed something this time around. It's such a horrible feeling knowing there's nothing you can do to prevent it from happening again. At least if we knew what caused HLHS I could try to prevent it.

Every 2.5 minutes

Our shirts arrived today. My family is participating in a run/walk for the heart and stroke foundation. My cousin in law and myself are doing the 10 k run while everyone else is doing a 5k walk. I ordered shirts online from hopeforhlhs.com and I'm so happy they've arrived with a month to spare. Looking at these shirts makes me really sad though.

How did I get here? I think back to last year when we'd just started trying and can't believe where we are now. We were so naive, carefree and stupid. Stupid for thinking bad things couldn't happen to us. The thing is I don't know anyone who hasn't had a healthy baby.  I'd heard horror stories about babies with problems and all I really thought about was downs syndrome. My doctor scared me a few days before my 18 week ultrasound because he phoned and left a message about the results from my triple screen. It took him forever to say the results were good and we had nothing to worry about. I'm sure the message was actually less then 30 seconds but I was so scared and worried since he told me he wouldn't call unless there was a problem! I thought I was good after hearing that. I thought it was all set and we'd have a healthy beautiful baby in a few months like everyone else. That feeling when you hear there is something seriously wrong with your baby, I can't describe it. I guess the best way is you can almost feel your whole world falling apart. I don't remember too much of our long 2 hour conversation with the team of doctors. All I remember is staring at the picture I'd just received of our baby and then after awhile not being able to look at it (I think I actually turned it over) because all I wanted to do was cry. It took having an HLHS baby to realize that like the shirt says "every 2.5 minutes a baby is born with a congenital heart defect." About 1 in 100.

I don't know how people do it. I don't know how women find the strength to go through labour knowing what the baby is up against. I didn't like being pregnant with Hailey.  I took it all for granted, but the moment I found out she was sick I wanted her to be able to stay in me forever. I knew I could only protect her for so long.  Now, I'd go through years of morning sickness to bring her back and have her healthy. 

I'm going to end this now before Dan walks in and sees me crying. I've convinced him to buy a doppler for our next pregnancy. It won't change anything and it won't tell us anything since Hailey's heart sounded normal but I've been really anxious the past couple weeks. 2 girls I'm close with from work are due to have babies soon and I'm so terrified for them. I don't know if I'll be able to make it 40 weeks with our next baby. I'm all too aware of how quickly things can go wrong.